Ringkasan dibuat dengan bantuan AI • Belum diverifikasi
Dalam sesi tanya jawab langsung dari Birken, Ajahn Sona menjawab berbagai pertanyaan praktis dan filosofis seputar praktik Buddhis. Ceramah ini membahas beragam topik, mulai dari teknik meditasi, kosmologi, hingga tantangan kehidupan sehari-hari, dengan tujuan memberikan panduan yang aplikatif bagi para praktisi. Pertanyaan utama yang diangkat mencakup cara mengatasi kantuk saat meditasi berbaring, pemahaman tentang alam surga, perbedaan konsep nibbida, viraga, dan upekkha, serta isu-isu seperti cinta romantis, perawatan orang tua, dan kecanduan. Ajahn Sona memberikan penjelasan yang mendalam namun praktis, menekankan pentingnya sikap batin yang benar dan penyesuaian praktik sesuai kondisi individu. Alur pemikirannya berkembang dari hal-hal teknis meditasi, kemudian meluas ke pemahaman kosmologis dan konseptual, lalu menyentuh aspek relasional dan sosial, dan diakhiri dengan nasihat tentang membangun komunitas dan pemulihan diri. Pesan utama yang dapat dibawa adalah bahwa praktik Dhamma harus disesuaikan dengan keadaan nyata, tidak terjebak pada ambisi duniawi atau surgawi, dan senantiasa dilandasi oleh cinta kasih serta kebijaksanaan dalam menghadapi berbagai situasi kehidupan.
Welcome to our live stream from Birken Forest Monastery. I'm Ajahn Sona. Please join in
with the questions and answers. I'm happy to see people from all over the world checking
in. It's really very beautiful. And let's proceed with the first question.
Yes, Ajahn. The first question from the live chat is from Eric in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.
Dear Ajahn, due to health, I practice lying down three times 60 minutes daily. From your talks,
I see anapana, body contemplation, upeka, and metta are central.
Can you suggest how to structure my daily practice?
Well, you're, yeah.
So, I'm going to start with the first question.
So, lying down meditation. I presume that you're not sleeping for three one-hour periods. You're
just lying down. Some sort of back issue or some sort of body issue where you have to lie down.
And it's perfectly okay that there are four postures described in classical Buddhism and
walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. And specifically metta, loving kindness, that is,
is prescribed in all of the four postures. So, it doesn't mean that it's preferred, but certainly
there are all kinds of reasons why people have bodily injuries and illnesses and so forth and
they have to lie down at certain points. There's no reason to stop meditating because you're lying
down. The only reason why sitting is preferred over lying down is that there's a tendency to go
to sleep lying down. It's much more likely to go to bed than to go to bed. So, I'm going to start with
the first question. So, upeka is equanimity. And so, you mentioned that as well. And of course,
you can practice that as well. Upeka, lying down, like basically there are two kinds of
this upeka or equanimity. One is only found in deep samadhi meditation,
the form of meditation. And the other is only found in deep samadhi meditation,
the fourth stage, the fourth jhana and so forth, which is unlikely to, for most people,
it's unlikely that you're going to get to those depths of stillness. So, the type of upeka you'd
be practicing while you're lying down would be more like an active attitude towards thoughts
and feelings that are arising or your life in general, that you're practicing balance in your
life.
Balance towards what? Balance towards praise and blame, success and failure, good fortune, bad
fortune, fame and obscurity. These are the worldly winds that blow in different directions. And you
are to remain as a mountain unmoved by these changes in your social life, in your economic
life. And so,
that's a time you can practice that attitude while lying down. Body meditation, yes, you can
scan the body, not scan the body, but be aware of the nature of the body. And you can look at
the four foundations of mindfulness under the body meditation when you can apprehend the body as
being of four elements of water, of air, of heat, and of earth.
You can sort of dissolve the body into that. We want detachment and non-personalization towards the body that we
have. It's not ours. It's not, we didn't make it. It just grows by itself due to biological laws. And people get
very, very tangled in knots over the nature of their bodies.
When it's really just something that is inherited from nature, the laws of biology and, and physics that just create human bodies.
And, one should not get swept away and personalized by it. And one should not also forget that it's very fragile, vulnerable and prone to illness.
So, that's the body meditation.
So, those are all the things that I want to emphasize here today. Thank you very much for attending.
appropriate meditations breath meditation as well when lying down you can do breath meditation
so all of those four topics are can be done lying down yeah the next question comes to us from martin
in central europe dear ajahn during anapana meditation my mind often shuts down with heavy
sleepiness how can i navigate this dullness entirely from the inside without moving my body
or opening my eyes what internal shifts can help brighten the mind well there's sometimes when uh
anapana meaning breathing in and breathing out mindfulness breathing in and out is perhaps
inappropriate and and when you're feeling very very drowsy like that it may be the wrong thing
one
uh possibility that you can do is to try to visualize light
you can also of course open yours you're talking about you know not moving your body or opening
your eyes but there's no reason why you shouldn't move your body or open your eyes if you are
feeling drowsy you need to counteract that about the buddha gives you ideas for
getting over drowsiness and one of them is walking so walking meditation
one way before settling the mind but keeping it energized
uh can be done by doing walking meditation you just find a spot um
10 meters 15 meters long and for americans uh
40 feet 30 40 feet long and um just walk back and forth lightly
nothing special
and enjoy the feeling of walking back and forth.
Let the mind settle down, be present here and now in the feeling of walking.
And you can get sort of halfway to the samadhi state during the walking.
And then when you go to do your sitting meditation with mindfulness of breathing,
you are halfway there but still energized rather than just sleepy.
Sleepiness, the point of the exercise is not to drowse sitting up.
That's just sleeping sitting up.
That's nothing to do with breath meditation.
Breath meditation needs to be done when you have some lucidity and you are awake.
So you might also shift the meditation topic to more interesting things like loving kindness or compassion
or reflective.
Think of meditations on the body, on feelings, on the Dhamma itself, the Four Noble Truths.
Things like that for inspiration and interest.
And then when your mind is focused, then you go back to the breath.
But don't try to insist that not changing posture and not opening the eyes is somehow a good thing
and that there's some magic way.
There's some magic way you can shrug off the sleepiness.
Aside from visualizing light, there isn't much you can do except to switch the topics
or change bodily positions.
The next question is from Radoslaw from Poland.
There is much information about Chatu Maharajaka, Tawatingsa and Tusita, yet almost none about
Yama, Nimanarati and Paranimitawasawati.
Can you give some information about these heavens?
I can imagine virtuous laypeople being reborn in the two lower ones and monks in Tusita.
But who goes to Yama or Nimanarati?
What are the characteristics of these heavens and how do I get there?
Congratulations on our questioner.
Metta.
Thank you, Metta, for pronouncing those in Pali.
These are what are called the six sensuous heavens.
And a few things about them, yes, it's, they are, there's something like the idea of Christian
ideas of heaven and I really wonder where the Christians got their ideas of heaven.
The heavens are...
very carefully and meticulously articulated in Buddhist teachings, both in the suttas
and in the commentaries.
The cosmology, the places, the stations of consciousness, the places where consciousness
goes and is associated with some side of a body or a material or subtle material body,
are very...
very precisely described in the Buddhist teachings.
There's more than 30 of them, 30 of these levels of consciousness.
So Bratislava is asking about these, what are particularly called the six sensory heavens.
So there's a lot of sensory happiness there.
There's a light, very light.
And...
elegant material, subtle material body that enjoys the pleasures of the senses for very,
very long periods of time, millions or billions of years.
So one thing that Bratislava says is that monks might go to see to heaven.
If they do, they should be ashamed of themselves.
That's not the destiny.
That's not the proper aspiration for monks.
Monks should aspire...
They should consider it a bit of a shame if they end up in the sensory heavens.
And there's a few stories, interesting stories where monks do, and they find themselves somewhat
embarrassed by the situation.
As for lay people, yes, it's a possibility.
It's a possibility.
It's a possibility.
It's a possibility.
It's a possibility.
The means for getting to these places are generosity, kindness, virtue.
And that that can, at death, the moment of death, the consciousness adverts towards this
lighter and more beautiful realm and then instantly, spontaneous birth there, one appears.
But it's all about...
Now, he mentions a couple of the ones that are less common, and these, the Nimminarati and Parinimmarati.
These are the fifth and sixth realms of the sensory heavens, the highest of the sensory heavens.
And they are primarily around creators, our creations, the ability to create with the mind,
and then the top one is the ability that you don't even have to create with the mind, you just enjoy the creations of others.
So, this is similar to people who are artists, who have fantastic capacities for creation of literary things,
of artistic things, that is a kind of a special gift, what we would maybe call a special talent or capacity of the mind,
that other people admire and wish they could do as well.
And, but it requires work, there's the agony and ecstasy of creation, of works of art.
And even above that is the,
those who simply enjoy the creations of others.
Now, these are described in greater detail on this YouTube channel.
There's a series of ten videos on cosmology, Buddhist cosmology, that myself and Ajahn Poonadamo have a dialogue on.
We go into some of the details of these six sensory heavens.
A lot of people come to Buddhism and they think that Buddhism has no idea about heavens and hells and so forth,
that it's only about nibbana, but it's not, actually.
It's very, very clearly articulated the whole cosmology, including the deepest levels of distress and suffering,
up to the most exalted levels of sensory pleasures, etc.
So, yeah, check out those ten cosmology videos.
They're done, they're very nicely illustrated.
We had other talented people come in and add visual information to it as well.
So, I will leave that for now and let's go to the next question.
The next question from the chat is from Charlie from Melbourne.
Ajahn, what is your advice on using buddho as an aid to focusing a distracted mind while doing anapana,
since the mind can only have one object?
I would not use buddho and mix it with anapanasati.
If the mind is wandering, use counting for mindfulness of breathing.
So, what you do is count the out-breath, just the out-breath.
So, you have one.
Don't count the in-breath.
Two, three.
So, however slow or fast your breathing is, just count the in-breath up to ten perhaps,
maybe even only up to five, and then go back to one.
And if you lose your place in the counting, and this tells you that your mind is wandering,
you lose your count.
You're trying to count five breaths in a row and you can easily forget where you are.
And this is what counting does.
It allows you to realize when your mind has gone wandering.
So, when people start to do breath meditation, they're often gone most of the time and they don't even know it.
And then they realize, oh, my meditation time is up, my half an hour, my 45 minutes is up,
and I forgot to pay attention to my breath.
Most of the time.
So, the counting allows you to stay on the breath.
And if you can establish that, and by the way, if you miss a count, just go back to one.
Don't think, oh, yeah, where was I?
Was it five, four?
As soon as you realize you don't know the next number, you go back to one and start again.
And so, you just count in a cycle, you know,
and you can count a number of cycles up to five.
And then if you feel like, okay, now my mind is now collected and concentrated around the breath,
then you can abandon the counting and just enjoy the experiences of the breath meditation.
The word buddho is used in Thailand, especially in the forest tradition.
Before I went to Thailand, I'd never encountered such a practice.
I was initially reading the Pali Canon and the commentaries
and practicing with various other schools and so forth.
Never heard of this buddho thing.
And I never used it, actually.
But it seems to be common, and it's often given to householders and people
just to kind of keep the word buddho or buddha in mind
while you're doing your chores around the campus.
In the kitchen and so forth.
Just kind of keeping the buddha present in your mind.
But basically, it shouldn't be really mixed with other strategies.
Buddho is kind of like just a mindfulness centered,
kind of an emotional centering while you're in the process of sweeping up in the kitchen
or cooking or things like that.
One question from the chat is from Kolmurf.
Can you please discuss the differences between disenchantment, dispassion, and equanimity?
They seem connected but different in practice.
Yeah, disenchantment.
Nibbida is a loss of interest in the world,
or even sometimes a sense of revulsion towards things.
And dispassion is viraga, without desire.
So what happens is that you can become sort of neutral towards the world
but still have some sensory attachments,
still have a bit of lust about certain things.
And...
So viraga, this lack of desire, is another special thing.
And desire can arise with pleasant feelings.
And it's less problematic than hostility, anger, hatred, etc.
It's less problematic.
But it's...
It's...
It feels good.
And so it's harder to get rid of than the negative emotions.
The negative emotions of anger and hatred and so forth are rather destructive,
both to the person who experiences them and to people around them.
But they're fairly easy to get rid of because they're very unpleasant.
They don't feel good.
So when you hear that it's possible to get over anger and so forth,
your dismay with the world and so forth,
then it's quite...
It's easier to do that because you want to.
You don't like these negative feelings.
But desire, raga, is hard to get rid of
because it often is accompanied by pleasant sensation.
So that's why they change...
They have nipida and viraga.
Nipida meaning sort of disenchantment
and viraga meaning the loss of desire.
And then equanimity, in the end,
is a stillness in the face of the polarities of life,
of the good fortune, bad fortune, praise and blame,
good reputation, fame and obscurity,
success and failure.
It's a sterling quality of philosophical balance
in the midst of these changing events in one's life.
Yeah.
The next question...
Excuse me.
The next question from the chat is from jckm01.
In Western culture, there's a lot of emphasis
on finding a romantic partner who can meet all one's needs
and save oneself.
Was there this belief in the Buddhist time
and in modern Thailand?
How can one deal with a deep longing
for a romantic and sexual partner?
Might there ever be a skillful intention
around seeking a life companion
and perhaps only seeking out a Buddhist partner?
Though with mixed partnerships
and the unknown nature of falling in love,
this may not be the only way of the world and fate.
Any advice is gratefully received.
Yeah.
Romantic love is very part of deep history.
A lot of cultures override that.
Of course, there's a whole long tradition
of arranged marriages and so forth
where they're not interested in your personal attraction
when you're 17 years old.
You know, you can make bad choices
because you like somebody's hair
or the way they laugh or things like that.
These are not great reasons for getting married.
But in the culture,
it seems to be European culture
has sort of made a celebration of romantic love.
It starts in the, you know,
the medieval period.
There's poems and songs and so forth.
But you can see it in ancient Indian writing as well.
People fall in love, they, etc.
They elope, they run away.
It's a powerful motivator in human affairs.
You end up in an arranged marriage
but then you meet somebody
that you actually have a lot of chemistry with
and then you fall into adultery.
You get in big trouble, etc.
So this is part of all cultures and all times.
Is it necessary?
Well, most people are going to pursue that
in some way or another.
It seems to be wired in.
Of course, that's what we have.
We have celibacy in monastic life
both in the West and in the East.
The idea that you can transcend this,
that you don't need to be just attached to one person
or even these polygamy and so forth.
That somehow there's a level above that
and that you can actually rise above your natural instincts.
But there's only a small percentage of the population
that are actually going to do that.
But if you can, by the way,
there's a lot of liberation in that.
There's a huge amount of freedom.
If you're craving and desiring an attachment to another person
because you're infatuated with them, etc.,
is also a kind of bondage.
You're not independently happy.
If you lose them or they die or they change,
then you feel bereft, you feel lost,
you feel part of you is unsatisfactory.
So that's the danger of it, right?
But if you pursue that kind of thing,
then you should be aware that there might be
some other qualities that you should look for.
You mentioned trying to be both Buddhist and so forth.
Yes, obviously if you have shared values,
it can be much more conducive to a happy life.
If you have two different ethical systems, belief systems,
it's very likely to lead to problems.
It's like two whole religious traditions,
whole cultures don't get along.
They have wars with each other
because they don't share the same values.
And so it is with individuals
who are in a kind of a mixed marriage
where they have different value structures.
It is likely but not absolutely necessary to cause problems.
So yeah, if you can get on the same page
with somebody's shared values, that's a beautiful thing.
It's more likely to make the relationship a success
in terms of both supporting each other
and having shared common values.
Yeah.
The next question from the chat is from Jason.
Dear Ajahn,
I'm really struggling with being a caregiver for my mother.
I realize that there is a particular responsibility to parents,
but it is also subjecting me to a lot of harm.
Any advice?
Yes, it can be a burden.
Having children is a burden.
Having relatives is sometimes a burden.
Having friends are sometimes a burden.
And then stages of life
where you're taking care of your parents
can be a burden as well.
In all these cases, you try to get help.
Some sort of at least brief periods of time
where you're not totally responsible.
You can get somebody else to share a period of caretaking.
That's great.
You can have a little break from it.
And also take time
to listen to other voices, etc.
So right now you're listening to another voice.
Something that refreshes you,
that shows concern for your own well-being as well.
Because we can't ignore our own needs all the time
and just take care of somebody else's needs.
We also have to take care of our own.
So you try to enlist...
Either by paying somebody
or by sharing the burdens with somebody else
who is willing to take it on.
Giving yourself some little holidays, etc.
And also getting a break
by reading a good book,
watching a good movie, etc.
Whenever you have the opportunity,
you refresh yourself
and plan all kinds of little opportunities.
For refreshment.
And that's how you manage with this.
The next question from the chat is from Dusty.
Your voice is very peaceful and soothing to listen to.
Is that a result of living the Dharma?
And if so,
is it also a part of right speech
to speak without haste
and using profane cuss words?
Yeah.
The voice,
the human voice is a very complex thing.
And part of it emerges
from your emotional attitude.
So if you have the right attitude,
the tone of your voice will change
and the selection of your words will change.
Where does speech come from?
It comes from the heart, actually.
And because we have to deal with
all kinds of things in the world
and you can't prepare mentally
ahead of time for a pre-prepared speech,
you have to just prepare the heart.
And if the heart is prepared
with equanimity and goodwill,
then the right speech will follow.
The right words will be chosen.
They'll be delivered in the right way.
And if the person who's listening is receptive,
and not everybody is receptive,
they have to be in the right mood.
They have to be in the right mode of receptivity.
Then they will appreciate and hear it.
They will sense it.
So that is the nature of the relationship of voice,
the tone of the voice,
the speech,
the choice of words,
are all a very, very complex and rich system
which is organized by the emotional attitude.
And the emotional attitude is developed
through your right view.
You know, your deep practice of meditation
and the reflecting on various Dhamma topics, etc.
And then it comes out through the voice.
The next question from the chat is from Sisi.
Dear Ajahn,
Is there a karmic or spiritual difference
between practicing Dhamma through monetary donations
versus physical volunteering?
Yeah.
There are different kinds of dana or generosity.
And the Buddha is very much into doing things directly.
Money donations are very good,
you know, building projects.
So if somebody doesn't know, you know,
doesn't know how to bang a nail into a board or something,
there's no point in them doing carpentry
when they have no skills.
So they can donate for that.
But the Buddha also suggests that, you know,
once in a while you go to a monastery,
prepare a meal yourself and offer it
to worthy people.
Even offering, you know, preparing food
and offering it for animals, etc.
is also meritorious.
It's a beautiful thing, a very direct thing.
All beings need nutrition.
They need food.
Nobody lives without it.
No being lives without food.
So you can offer it to beings
and offering it directly is a whole body experience as well.
Yeah.
So you'll see in the Buddhist countries,
the tradition, you know,
the king and the queen of Thailand,
the generals in the army and so forth,
will often go to the monasteries
and offer food directly from their own hands.
If they have no skills in cooking,
they may not have prepared it themselves.
But some do indeed want to actually prepare it themselves
as well and offer it.
Some will employ a chef.
Some very, even very wealthy people
go to monasteries and make offerings of food.
But sometimes they arrange it through their chef.
But they themselves offer the dish
with their very own hands to the monastics.
And you'll see this tradition also
of sometimes feeding, you know,
impoverished people in famines and so forth.
Very wealthy people,
people who are famous or well-off,
go and offer with their very own hands
food to people who are in need.
And again, with even animals.
Animals need help as well sometimes
than people who are very well-off.
And highly esteemed will go and offer
to feed even the animals, you know.
The next question is from Samrit.
Dear Ajahn,
Does unintentional harm also create unwholesome karma?
I accidentally hit a lady with a scooter
in my teenage years.
I took her to the hospital afterwards
and doctors said she is okay.
Yes, you need not worry about that.
Unintentional harm is
has no karmic consequence.
And it's very important that we understand this.
Because we often take on guilt
for things that we had no intention of producing.
So accidents happen.
And we must be clear that
although we were involved, it wasn't intentional.
And there are no consequences to that.
We would never...
The Buddha repeats this again and again.
There are whole religions and sects
of philosophers and views
where unintentional harm
has negative consequences.
And the Buddha was at great pains
to say, please do not take up that view.
That view is wrong.
And in modern
law and modern justice systems
they also recognize
they're always inquiring
was it intentional or not?
Sometimes things even result in death of people
but there was no intention.
And so the person is off the hook.
They're not punished for the results
because there was no intention behind it.
So it's very important not to inflict guilt on yourself.
Now that is your responsibility.
Don't punish yourself inappropriately.
You're not guilty.
But you will be guilty
if you inflict guilt on yourself.
That is intentional.
That is intentional harm towards yourself.
And that is unwholesome.
So you must stop doing that.
The next question from the chat is from Giancarlo.
In your Dhamma talk on November 30th, 2025
you were speaking of a mother
who had taken her own life.
You counseled her son to share merit with her.
To give food, make offerings
and perform other acts of merit on her behalf.
Yet on other occasions
for example, September 28th, 2025
on country Kama
you have taught that Kama
and therefore its Vipaka
is strictly personal.
That the fruit of an action ripens
only for the one
who has performed it.
These two teachings seem on the surface
to stand in tension.
In tension.
Would you be so kind
as to clarify this apparent contradiction?
Yes.
You can't take the karma
of another person onto yourself.
You can't...
You can either purify
or impurify another.
No one purifies
or makes another impure.
Each person, each being
experiences the results
of their intentional actions.
But that doesn't mean that you can't
by putting out positive energy
and gifts and so forth to others
can't give them some relief
from their suffering as well.
So, you know, a person does a crime
and they end up in jail
but, you know, somebody comes to visit them
or sends them a gift and so forth.
This cheers them up
and produces a...
helps them produce a wholesome mental state
in their own minds.
Then they get the...
They get a good result from that.
The giver of that gift
of cheering up
or offering food
in their name
or something like this.
Also, they get
a positive result from that.
But they can't remove
a negative consequence from another person.
And they can't transfer
a positive result
which is in their life
to another person.
Each person is made unwholesome
or wholesome by their own intentional actions.
However, you can contribute to
or offer something which might
change the mind of a person.
It changes the emotional state of a person.
So that's what we do
when we offer teachings to another person.
We can't just...
We're not...
There's whole religions where somehow
by laying on of hands
or shooting something out of your forehead
into the...
You're gonna enlighten somebody.
No, you can't do that.
It's simply not possible.
We...
That would allow no personal responsibility whatsoever.
Each individual is a stream of processes
which has cause and effect
only within that stream.
And it can't be interrupted
or removed or replaced
by another stream of consciousness.
But positive things towards that person
might invigorate positive states of mind
in that other person.
We call it a person
but it's really a stream of consciousness
is what it is.
The next question
is from Third Silence from Poland.
Dear Ajahn,
what type of meditation
is appropriate for a seven-year-old child?
Loving-kindness meditation.
May I be well and happy and peaceful.
May my parents be well, happy and peaceful.
May my relatives be well, happy and peaceful.
You can...
And when you come to the relatives,
you might say,
may my grandfather and my grandmother
and my uncle and my aunt
and my cousins
and on and on.
They delight in naming them off
and they can name them as well.
May they be well, happy and peaceful.
And may my teachers be well, happy and peaceful.
May my classmates be well, happy and peaceful.
May my friends be well, happy and peaceful.
May my...
May strangers...
And you can...
Strangers in the street and stores
and in cities and in countries far away,
may they all be well, happy and peaceful.
And may all the animals be well, happy and peaceful.
And may even my enemies be well, happy and peaceful.
And then they might say,
well, how come I want my enemies to be well, happy and peaceful?
Shouldn't they suffer?
Well, you say,
look, if they were feeling better,
then they would be less trouble for you as well.
And also, you don't want the negative feeling
of being angry at people.
If they've done you harm,
you don't want to inflict harm on yourself
by thinking angry thoughts to them.
So, especially for kids,
learning that it's perfectly good
to wish yourself to be well and happy and peaceful,
and there are no reasons why you shouldn't be.
You must give that to yourself.
And because this is not said out loud quite often,
it's not...
They hear all kinds of things,
movies and stories about people who are angry
and vengeful and violent.
They don't know.
If you don't tell them specifically
about the right attitude to life in general,
they won't know it.
But if you do a little meditation with them
from time to time,
and just...
It doesn't have to require a lot.
Just, may I be well, happy and peaceful.
May my parents,
may my friends, etc.
Simply like that.
That's what they need.
That's just...
That's a beautiful, all-encompassing meditation
for seven-year-olds.
The next question is from Rob Radek.
What practices are the most beneficial
for carrying the meditation practice
into everyday life?
I've been recommended mindfulness
of the six sense bases.
Is this sound advice?
Let's keep it simpler than that.
One thing is...
You start in the morning
with a little bit of...
A reflection.
Just a few minutes.
You don't always have 45 minutes
to sit still and watch your breath
or anything in the morning.
But a few minutes.
Just a minute or two.
Just say, you know,
there's no reason for me to be angry
or impatient
or shocked
or surprised by anything.
I need to step into the world today
with my mind balanced
and with a good feeling in my heart
of goodwill.
And I don't expect everybody
to behave themselves.
I don't expect everybody
to say the right things
or act the right way.
Why would I?
And my goodwill and my patience
and my sense of well-being
does not depend on everybody else
being...behaving themselves.
I don't require the world around me,
the people in the world,
the animals, the weather
or anything
to follow my preferences.
I have decided
to maintain a sense of well-being,
of goodwill,
of ease.
And I will hold that
no matter what goes on in the world.
I'm not waiting for the world
to conform to my demands.
I am choosing right now
to be well.
And you're going to have to remind yourself
five times during the day
to renew that attitude.
And that is...
that is mindfulness.
That is mindfulness of...
which prevents greed,
hatred and delusion
from arising within you
and which promotes
generosity, kindness and clarity
to arise within you.
The six sense bases are
the world that you experience
is through your sight, sound, smell,
taste, touches and ideas.
And so you will deal with
all of those six senses
by having the right attitude
to the sights, sounds, smells,
tastes, touches and ideas
that you encounter
within yourself.
The world is found within yourself
through these senses.
And so if you have the right attitude
that will properly deal with
these six senses.
But you don't have to think about the six senses.
Just think about
I have chosen
to have an attitude of
of kindness,
of patience,
of joy,
of equanimity
and nothing that the world does
is going to change that for me.
The next question from the chat
is from Katazina from Poland.
How to direct your attention during meditation?
How much effort and how much observation
should one have when moving from
one stage to the next?
How does one recognize this?
What should you follow?
You can choose a meditation subject.
But the choice of the meditation subject
has to do a little bit of reflection
before you do it.
You should ask yourself
Am I tired?
Am I awake?
Am I energized?
Am I agitated?
Am I angry?
Am I feeling peaceful?
And so the choice of the meditation subject
will be based on your present state.
But once you choose it
and the choice has to be made with wisdom.
For instance, if you're angry, etc.
then you choose some subject
which will cause the anger to dissipate.
To go away.
Such as loving kindness or patience
or some kind of reflection
or reflective thing on the Dhamma.
Which causes anger to dissipate.
And you will stay at it until the anger is gone.
Or sadness or lethargy, heaviness, boredom.
All of these things.
So you look at yourself.
You examine yourself.
Are there any of these defilements of personality?
These hindrances?
Psychic irritants?
Are any of them present?
How should I free myself from these?
What can I introduce that will free me from these things?
You're looking for freedom.
You're looking for the joy of freedom.
From these inner harassments.
And you're going to choose the right
appropriate topic
in order for that to take place.
So that's how you should choose it.
And then you should remain with it
until it has its effect.
Yeah.
The next question is from Kusharan.
How can anyone build a Buddhist co-housing situation?
Is there a model or guide?
It's always tricky.
A monastery is a Buddhist co-housing situation.
But the issue is
you have to be realistic.
People want to build ideal
sort of utopian communities.
It's a famous project through history.
They get brilliant ideas
and they're going to make this utopian.
But individuals are
full of all kinds of
quirks and delusions.
And so
it's all right to have that idea.
But you have to understand that people
quite often cannot live up to the expectations.
There's required a goal
and a great deal of wisdom
to deal with individuals
in an appropriate way.
So if you're going to start a Buddhist co-housing
you have to decide
well, is anybody in charge of this?
Who do we look to for direction
about where the boundaries are?
What are our choices about behavior?
What shall we do?
What shall we say to each other?
How shall we speak to each other?
How shall we act with each other?
These are more or less the precepts,
the boundaries which you set up.
And then who can we rely on for advice?
And if somebody is not living up to the expectations
what shall we do?
Shall we ask them to leave?
And how shall we ask them to leave?
Shall it be three people that decide they should leave?
Shall it be one person that decides they leave?
Etc.
This is the...
It's tricky.
And one should not look for perfection.
It's just not possible to have these perfect communities.
But that's why you build in these
situational plans
for
situations where
people are not living up to the
standards that we aspire to.
And so that's how you do it.
And so all monasteries are like that.
So I mean I have like
more than 40 years of experience with this.
It's not easy to just set up this utopian community
but you don't want...
You don't expect perfection.
What you expect is
better than
no community.
Better than no rules.
That's what you...
That's what you expect.
And we will have...
We will have one last question.
The last question for today is from Krishnapartha.
Do you have any advice for someone in alcohol rehab
and getting over addiction?
What would the Buddha suggest?
Well, most of the addictions
are attempts to relieve suffering.
And they're just unskillful ways of relieving suffering.
But if your suffering went away,
you probably would find it very easy to give up alcohol.
Drugs or alcohol are very easy to give up
if you're not suffering.
If you're happy and well.
So you have to work on things that make you happy.
You have to, first of all,
overcome any ill will you have towards yourself.
Quite often, the addictions are
a misplaced ill will towards yourself.
If a person is raised in a family that shows ill will,
convinces the person that they're not worthy,
that they're not lovable, etc.
And many, many families do this.
Then the person will be struggling with this,
the pain and the poison of self-loathing and so forth.
And so that has to go.
Otherwise, the only thing that helps
is to an anesthetic of alcohol or drugs.
It eases the pain.
But it makes it worse in the end.
So we have to learn to be good to ourselves.
To have a good life.
To have a loving attitude towards ourselves.
And then to others as well.
And that will be the basis for the possibility
of living without having to medicate
the fierce pain of self-ill will.
Yeah.
So listen to lots of talks by Ajahn Sona
about loving-kindness.
Because I got a million of them.
Okay.
Well, we'll leave that for this week.
And we hope to be back
and see people from all over the world
come in and ask questions.
It's so much...
It's so beautiful.
We have them from...
Where do we have them?
We have them from Poland.
We have them from the US
and England, Europe.
All over the place.
Canada.
Canada, of course.
So we will see you next week
if things go well.